Maintaining a relevant and informative business website is vital to a company’s success. Websites are often the first port of call for prospective clients and need to provide useful, informative content for the client as well as clear contact details, products and the opportunity to partake in e-commerce.

Re-designing your website can be a good way to increase traffic to your site and thus sales or enquiries. Nevertheless, before handing your website over to any old web design company, it is important to discuss your needs and ask questions to make sure that you and the designer are on the same page.

Before meeting with the designer, it is vital to go over the functionality of your website. Is it more important to create a high quality ‘arty’ aesthetic with fancy navigating buttons or is it more important for prospective clients to be able to navigate your website and buy products with ease?

The first question to ask any prospective designer should be ‘Can I look at your portfolio?’ This enables you to check the quality of previous work, checking that their website design isn’t repetitive, as well as generating ideas on what may or may not work for your business. So? What is web design miami prices? Before that thing, check this step below.

Other important questions include:

– What skills, qualifications and experience do you have? This is essential in investigating whether a company has the necessary skills to build your particular site. Also, don’t worry about making a phone call to a previous client to check the references of the proposed web designer.

– Where are you based? If you require face to face meetings with your web designer, Southampton based designers may not be ideal if your company is in Edinburgh.

– What will you expect from me? Planning sites is time consuming and the effort required from you may vary. Some agencies build only what you’ve specified, whereas others give considerable assistance in developing an internet strategy that will involve input from you. If you are expected to write a lot of text for your new site, then make sure you do it for the deadline required, then the designers have no excuses if your website is not delivered on schedule.

– Costs and payment terms? Website design companies have different methods for charging clients. Some may charge high set-up costs and occasional recurring charges. Some might attract customers having a low set-up cost after which charge high recurring charges. You should keep in mind that lots of website design companies focus on a bespoke basis and can therefore be unable to publish specific prices. They ought to however, have the ability to offer you a ball-park figure with different technical and style brief. They ought to be able to offer you a concept of what their hourly/daily rates are.

A website is a big investment, yet few companies ask about payment terms until the end of the decision process. It is now common for agencies to ask for deposits before beginning development work. Make sure you have payment terms in writing and have a good look through the agency’s standard terms and conditions. You can always ask for clauses to be added if this does not cover important requirements that you have.

– Do you hand code your websites? This shows a level of expertise that you are unable to get with designers that use software to develop the site.

– Can you provide the functionality that is needed for my website? From E-commerce systems to Flash movies, companies now expect their sites to have interactivity. Most agencies can develop sites that incorporate some interactive features, but the range and quality of these vary considerably, so check initially that you and the designer are on the same wavelength.

– Who owns the completed site? Surprisingly, some websites do not belong to the companies who think they’ve paid for them. This is particularly true of the cheaper site deals offered by companies specialising in starter sites. Be careful not to get caught out by believing that you will never need to move the site. You may outgrow your web design company or decide that you no longer want to work with them.

– Deadlines? Make sure that you have agreed on a projected timescale with the company to ensure that targets will be met.

– Can I monitor visitors to my site? Feedback is vital. Are your carefully planned pages getting the visits they deserve? What really makes the web stand out from other media is the scope it provides for you to monitor and adapt to visitors’ needs. Ask the agency to show you a working example of its method of monitoring the hits a website gets.

– Personality. It is important that you get on with your web designer as you will most likely be speaking to them on a regular basis. Many projects can last months, so a high level of compatibility will make the process much more enjoyable for everyone.